U.S. school principals are quicker to label their students as poor

American principals are more likely to say their students are poor, when compared to principals in countries where poverty rates are much higher.

A blog post published this week by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development says that when principals in 30 countries were asked about the socio-economic status of their students, Americans were more likely to see their students as poor.

According to the data, 65 percent of surveyed American principals told the OECD that more than 30 percent of their students come from disadvantaged homes. Only 13 percent of U.S. students are considered disadvantaged by OECD standards, though the data does not indicate how these students are distributed among the pool of U.S. schools surveyed for this report. Approximately half of the 29 countries surveyed have a higher percentage of disadvantaged students, compared to the U.S.